


With an Ocean in the Way

by enigma731, samalander



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Bondage, Bottom Natasha, Community: be_compromised, Cunnilingus, F/M, Multiple Orgasms, POV Female Character, Post-Avengers (2012), Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-28
Updated: 2013-07-28
Packaged: 2017-12-21 15:11:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/901733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigma731/pseuds/enigma731, https://archiveofourown.org/users/samalander/pseuds/samalander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For <a href="http://be-compromised.livejournal.com/318314.html?thread=6074730#t6074730">the prompt</a>; "You're a hard soul to save, with an ocean in the way."</p><p>After the battle, Natasha tries to help Clint find what he's lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With an Ocean in the Way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SugarFey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SugarFey/gifts).



Three days after the battle of New York, Natasha shows up at Clint's apartment unannounced. She doesn't bother to knock on the door, just presses her thumb to the fingerprint scanner, and listens as the locks click open.

His apartment is dark, of course, because Clint is nothing if not a championship brooder. Still, Natasha knows it like the back of her hand and, even without light, she manages to make it to his bedroom without tripping or stubbing any toes.

He’s in bed, has probably convinced himself that he deserves to rot there, and Natasha is not about to allow that. "Clint," she says, turning on the light. "Are you alive?"

The large lump under the blankets moves and moans. Natasha rolls her eyes. She’s given him more than enough time to lick his wounds in private, knows that he’s progressed beyond physical recovery and into the treacherous snare of guilt. She’s been waiting for this since he woke up on the Helicarrier and she knows better than to let him fight it alone. For a moment she considers taking her usual approach to one of his brooding spells, doing something just a little bit cruel to knock him out of his head. She could rip the thick comforter away or douse him in ice water, she thinks. But there’s nothing _usual_ about this, and in the moment when it really matters, she finds herself utterly without a plan. 

“Clint,” she says again, when he doesn’t respond, then toes off her boots and slips into the bed beside him. He stays quiet as she runs her fingers down his arm, but there’s a desperate tension in his muscles, like the length of his body is quivering, ready to snap.

"Hi," he mutters after a minute. "What are you doing here?"

Natasha resists the urge to roll her eyes again. "I'm here for you, idiot," she says, hooking a finger under his chin to make him look at her. "You've been AWOL for three days."

Clint's body seems to tense more next to hers, his eyes closed resolutely. "I'm not bothering anyone," he says. "Let me be."

“You’re bothering _me_ ,” says Natasha. She’s meant it as a gentle tease, but the humor falls flat, weighed down by too much truth.

“Right,” Clint snaps, wrenching out of her grasp and sitting up abruptly. “Would it be better if I was still out killing people?”

“Because those are your only two options,” Natasha answers tartly. She sits up to face him again, studying the way his eyes are still framed by shadows, the darkness in him that she needs to root out. 

"So why are you here?" he asks, hugging his knees to his chest. 

"You can keep asking that," she says, "but the answer isn't going to change."

He sighs. "So there's no way I can convince you to go bother Stark or something?"

"Nope!" she says, infusing it with as much faux-cheeriness as she can. "Stark fucked off back to Malibu, and you're the only person I want to bother."

Clint actually huffs a short laugh at that, his shoulders trembling in a grim echo of the recovery room, where his whole body strained and shook as he fought out the infection that was Loki. 

"Did you bring food?" he asks.

Natasha shakes her head. "I hoped you were feeding yourself."

Clint snorts another laugh, and she shivers at the same eerie resemblance as before. "The Black Widow is an optimist," he says. "And they think I'm the one under alien control."

“Being a hero changes you,” Natasha deadpans, parroting the ridiculous media coverage that’s been everywhere since the battle. She slides her hand up to the back of his neck, feeling irrationally like she needs to check him for fever, like he might be recovering from something as natural as a biological illness. “Come on. If you get up and take a shower, I’ll feed you.”

A muscle in his jaw jumps at her touch but he doesn’t push her away. “And if I don’t?”

“Torture,” says Natasha. She’s teasing, but she wonders whether he might find that option easier to accept, whether he wants to be punished.

To his credit, Clint laughs and swings his feet off the bed, stretching grandly as he stands. Natasha lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding, relieved that he's at least pretending to be normal for the moment.

* * *

She takes him to a diner on the corner, one they've been to a thousand times. It's usually empty and the pie is okay. Mostly it's a sense of normalcy that Natasha thinks Clint could use. He seems to brighten up over the course of the meal, inhaling pancakes like he's still a kid, jabbering about what happened on TV that night, on whatever fetid reality show he's currently addicted to. Natasha smiles and nods as he talks, appreciating the effort, if nothing else.

He shoves her into an alley as they walk back to his apartment, kissing her fiercely against the rough bricks of his building. He tastes like coffee and maple syrup, and she leans into it, her hands fisted in his shirt as she pulls him close.

"I missed you," he mutters, moving to kiss her neck and biting down on her clavicle.

She hums in agreement, tangling one hand in his hair. "Upstairs," she says, rolling her head to give him more access.

“Too far,” Clint growls, his breath coming hot and fast as he kisses the spot behind her ear. His hands rove over her back before coming to rest on her hips, his grip tight enough that his fingers will leave bruises. 

The edge of possessiveness in his voice makes her shiver and for a moment she actually considers the thrill of agreeing, of taking that risk with him. She thinks of the helplessness she saw in him under Loki’s control, of how caged he must have felt spending days underground. The hot anger those thoughts stir in the pit of her stomach only makes her want him more, and she decides that they absolutely cannot stay here for another second.

“Upstairs,” she repeats, grazing her teeth along his neck. “Now.”

Clint groans, a needy noise that makes Natasha's stomach flip, but he backs off and takes her hand, practically pulling her back onto the street. He laughs as they climb the stairs, her hand still clutched in his, and she does too, letting out a noise that’s almost a giggle as he opens the door and ushers he through, barely letting it fall closed before she's against the wall again, his mouth hot and eager on her skin.

"What are you doing?" she asks, grinning widely. "An hour ago you were moping in bed. I had to - oh! - cajole you into the shower."

Clint seems to be intent on leaving a mark on her neck, sucking an obvious bruise into the place where her pulse throbs. "I'm alive," he says, his eyes dancing. "And you're alive, and we're alive together. I think we should fuck. You know, because of that alive stuff."

She can't argue with his facts; they are both alive. But Natasha isn't sure how he's formulated this idea of celebratory sex. It's not like they've never done it before, hot and hard in a safehouse or sweaty and sweet in a gym shower after training. They've actually had a fair amount of sex, become comfortable enough in each other’s lives to have what most people might call a relationship. Only they aren’t other people and she refuses to call it anything or define limits, because concrete things can be broken.

“We did save the world,” Natasha agrees, tugging up the hem of his shirt until he raises his arms and lets her pull it off. She spares a moment to wonder whether this is simply a distraction, because she knows Clint far too well to believe that he’s made such a sharp turnaround from self-loathing to celebration. But it’s an improvement--a connection--either way, and she’s been far too afraid of losing him for good to deny herself. 

Clint runs his hands up her back as soon as she’s shed her own shirt, and she makes an appreciative noise at the roughness of his skin against hers. In the past, she thinks, he wouldn’t have waited any longer, might have lifted her up and fucked her right here against the wall. Instead he takes her hand again, leading her toward the bedroom.

Natasha doesn't waste any time when they get in there; as Clint turns to grab her she shoves him, sending him sprawling onto the bed. She's on him in a moment, her mouth sealed over his in the kind of kiss that she's missed, one that's colored with need and desperation and makes her ache for him.

She reaches to undo her bra, grinning down at him for a second before she notices his face. "Clint?" she asks. He's gone vacant, his jaw slack and his eyes glazed, and Natasha's heart races in panic. "Clint," she says again, firmly.

He shakes his head, seeming to snap himself out of whatever was going on. "Sorry." He smiles, reaching up to touch her face. "Where were we?"

“You wanted to fuck,” says Natasha, leaning into his hand a little. “Because of the alive thing.”

“You’re talking in the past tense,” Clint points out, stroking her cheek with his thumb and bringing his other hand up to skim along her side. “Why are you talking in past tense?” He tries to play it off with his usual humor, but his hands are shaking against her skin and she can’t ignore the chill that realization sends through her. 

“Because I need to know that you’re okay first,” says Natasha and lets her tone tell him that she’s not convinced.

Clint sighs, falling back against the bed with a noise of exasperation. “Yeah, I’m great. It took me three whole days to completely get over the fact that I fucking _killed people_. Jesus, Tasha, since when has this ever been about us being _okay_?”

She doesn't know what to say. All her training and she was still blindsided by the Loki’s attack on the world; nothing could have ever prepared her for this aftermath, for Clint falling apart under her hands. She feels the urge to hold him together, to grip the pieces and make the jagged edges mesh, but they don't. She can't.

"What do you need?" she asks, and Clint makes a bitter sound that was probably supposed to be a laugh.

"You have a time machine?"

Natasha shakes her head. "You have to stop this," she says, quietly. "You-- nothing you did was your fault. Not really. Your body did it, but your mind wasn't there. It's not your fault."

"It's my fault." He barely breathes the words, and she has to strain to hear them. "Why do you think that cockbag took me? I had certain skills, you could say. And he wanted them."

Natasha knows he's trying to bait her, knows he's using language that he hopes will send her over the edge or provoke a reaction. "Yeah," she scoffs. "He could really tell a lot about your skillset in the thirty seconds before he fucking brainwashed you."

“Right,” Clint answers bitterly and she can feel him slipping away from her again, abandoning any facade of normalcy to plunge headlong into guilt. “Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he took me because I was the closest and the biggest fuck up. Either way, it’s on me.”

“Okay,” says Natasha, because she is not about to argue the hypothetical motivations of an egomaniacal trickster god with him. “You win. It is your fault. Now what? You want me to call S.H.I.E.L.D. and tell them to come take you into custody?”

She sees anger flash in his eyes as he sits up abruptly, crowding her space in a way that she thinks is meant to intimidate, to _prove_ just how badly he’s fucked up the trust between them. Natasha doesn’t move.

“Stop,” he orders.

She raises an eyebrow. “What, trying to help you?”

“You’re manipulating me,” Clint snaps. “You think I need you playing with my head too?”

Natasha rolls her eyes at him, biting down the urge to point out that maybe _someone_ should be active in his head, and it doesn't seem to be him right now.

"Do you want me to leave?"

"Yes," he says, so quietly she almost misses it. She hesitates. "Yes," he says again, louder and more forcefully. "Leave."

Natasha gets off the bed and grabs her bra, pulling it on as she walks. She doesn't look back on her way out, because if she does, she'll never leave him. She doesn't want to. But he's asked her to, he wants to be left alone. And she can't reach him, not when he's like this. She stops to pick up her shirt and slip it on before she steps out the door, which swings closed behind her with a cathartic and dramatic bang. The crueler part of her hopes he has to explain the noise to every one of his stupid neighbors.

She pauses in the hallway, leaning heavily against the wall, and takes a deep breath. Being with Clint has never been easy; the ride has never been smooth. But today, seeing how fragmented and scattered he's become, she's actually scared, her heart in her throat like she's in freefall.

It's not her job to save him, not Natasha's problem if Clint is drowning. But that doesn't mean she doesn't want to; that's something he's given her, something he taught her. How to want to help people. 

So she pushes off the wall and makes her way down the stairs and out onto the street, where she takes a few deep lungfuls of air. There's already a plan percolating in her head, and she's pretty sure it'll work.

* * *

Natasha shows up at Clint's apartment the next afternoon- knowing him, he’ll be trying to sleep away the daylight. She's got a bag on her shoulder and a plan in her head.

She doesn't bother to knock again, and when she marches into Clint's bedroom and pulls back the curtains to flood the room with late daylight, he's prone on the bed with his head under the pillow.

"Get up," she says, tossing her bag on the bed.

Clint moans and hugs the pillow closer. "Tasha?" he asks, his voice muffled.

"Yup," she says, no-nonsense as she pulls the covers off of him.

"Didn't I kick you out?"

She laughs mirthlessly, which actually gets him to peek out from under his pillow. It's a small victory, but she's accepting any and all triumphs at this point, because she's going to need them.

"I want you to fuck me," she says, standing silhouetted by the window as she starts disrobing.

That absolutely gets his attention; he sits up and stares at her chest. "What?"

"Sex," Natasha says. "You. Me." She holds up her bag. "I brought accessories."

She half expects him to protest again, to claim that this was exactly his plan yesterday, before she derailed it. She’s prepared for him to continue sulking, has already formulated several choice responses in advance. Instead he swings his legs over the side of the bed, scrubs his hands across his face and looks up at her again with an expression that’s almost pained.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks quietly, and this time it sounds like an honest question, not another play at self-pity. 

“Because,” says Natasha, pulling her shorts down and stepping out of them, “you need to shake this thing. Apparently hitting you in the head wasn’t enough.” 

Clint swallows visibly as his eyes rake over the line of her body, but he hasn’t missed what she’s said. “This isn’t about _him_ ,” he says sharply. “It’s about what I did. People trusted me and I used it to hurt them. Kill them. I read the incident reports. All of them. _Fuck_ , Tasha, he wanted me to kill you.”

“I know,” she answers, and is sure that if he’s read the reports he’s also seen her interrogation footage from the Helicarrier. She doesn’t comment further, lets her presence here speak for itself.

“Loki’s in prison,” says Clint. “Hell, they’ve probably got some kind of god-sized Medieval torture on Asgard. And I’m--just supposed to come home and act like nothing happened?”

“So now you’re trying to punish yourself.” She closes the distance between them, moving to stand between his knees. His hands come up to grasp her hips again like instinct, like he might be able to ground himself in her. 

Clint nods once, then shudders again as his fingers tighten against her skin.

“If you need to punish someone,” she says quietly, “then punish me.” She picks up her bag again and holds it open so he can see the contents. 

Clint starts a little at her words, and his eyes go wide when he sees what's in the bag. Good. An actual reaction.

"Natasha," he says softly. "I'm not sure--"

She smiles and shakes her head, skimming a knuckle down the side of his face. "I'm not asking you to like, whip me," she says, reaching into the bag and pulling out the ropes she's coiled neatly inside. "I'm saying I trust you."

Clint still looks shell-shocked, his eyes sluggishly tracing the line of her arm to the nylon cords she's holding. "You trust me?" he chokes, his voice raw and low.

Natasha nods wordlessly.

"And you want me to-- to, what? Tie you up and--" he seems to be having trouble with the idea of her at his mercy, so Natasha leans in and kisses his forehead sweetly.

"I'm giving you permission," she says. "To stop punishing yourself for something that you did when you weren't in control. You can take it out on me, okay? I heal faster than you, and then you can move on."

"I'm-- I don't want to hurt you," he whispers, staring at his hands.

Natasha smiles kindly. "No," she says, "it's like this: I trust you. I believe in you. I-- I'd never do this with anyone else, you know that? But you. You need control? I'm giving you control. And how you use it is up to you. You can hurt me if you need to. You can do whatever you want to. And when you're done, I'll still trust you, and I'll still be your partner."

Clint's hands tremble as he reaches for the ropes.

"Are you sure?" he asks.

Natasha has never been so sure of anything in her life, but she just nods. "Bring it on, stud," she says, crawling into the bed next to him.

He takes a shallow breath and stretches out beside her, his body still visibly tense. Natasha doesn’t comment, though, doesn’t point out any of the numerous things she could do to help with that because this is about choices and they need to be his. He reaches out tentatively and traces the line of her torso, watching the movement as though trying to decide whether he recognizes his own fingers.

Natasha rests her hand over his for a moment, like sealing a promise. She isn’t sure whether her words have reached him through the thick armor of guilt he’s been building, but she’s always been better at showing him how she feels anyway. 

Clint brings his other hand up to cup her cheek again, just looking into her eyes for a long moment. She watches the shift in him as he finds what he needs. He nods once, before brushing his lips against hers in a kiss that’s so chaste she actually laughs softly.

“Okay,” he says finally, sitting up again and picking up the ropes. “Hands over your head.” He says it quietly, half a question, his usual confidence still shaken.

She complies without another word, looking up at him through her lashes. They’ve never done this before, at least not quite this way. Usually he’s the one in her position, the marks on his arms taking days to fade. Natasha shudders as he ties the knots like a memory of her usual movements. The callused pads of his thumbs are rougher on her skin than the fibers of the rope, and it sends a thrill of anticipation through her. 

He's still got a tremor in his hands, which is something Natasha's never seen from him before. It's strange to think of Clint as anything other than sturdy and true, but in this moment, he's not. He's unsure, he's anxious, and she's pretty sure that a bow would rattle right out of his grip for the way his hands are shaking as he works.

She doesn't say anything, though, just swallows and closes her eyes as he finishes.

"Too tight?" he asks, after a long moment. She tests the bonds and shakes her head. She can still feel her fingers but she's not going anywhere unless she unties his knots.

Clint smiles and starts trailing kisses down her body--her neck, her breasts and stomach, her thighs. "Spread," he says, tapping her knee. She does, and waits for him to tie her ankles. She hadn't been sure he would, but the thought of being completely restrained sends a shiver down her spine.

He runs an unsteady hand down her inner thigh to her calf, giving her ankle a gentle squeeze before looping the rope around it. His movements are precise, cautious, like he’s trying to reassure her instead of himself. And maybe he _is_ , she thinks, because he has to know that she wasn’t lying when she said she’s never done this before. She doesn’t tell him that she’s already irretrievably bound to him, and that the ropes have nothing to do with it. She says nothing about how the past week has made her realize just how desperately she needs him. Somewhere along the way he’s become her center of gravity, and the idea of losing him feels like falling. She doesn’t say any of it, just keeps her gaze rooted firmly to the ceiling and waits to be completely at his mercy. 

He presses a couple of sweet kisses to her ankles and calves as he finishes tying her, leaving her feeling utterly exposed. She concentrates on the way his hands are juddering against her skin, and tries to keep her own knees steady.

"Okay?" he asks, taking a deep breath. Natasha just bites her lip and nods. A substantial part of her brain is screaming that she should be fighting, that she should be asking a thousand and one questions about what he has planned. But a smaller part of her, a part that she's been trying to keep under wraps for a long time, wants this. Needs it. She's intoxicated by the idea that someone can take her burden for even a minute, the idea that Clint will take care of her. So she screws her eyes closed as he begins to touch her, feather-light, along the insides of her legs. 

She knows that Clint's usually a talker in bed, that he's a big fan of whispering filth in her ears as they fuck, but he's quiet as the grave today, seeming to put all his concentration into the way he touches her skin.

His fingertips ghost up her legs, and her hips jump when he suddenly leans in and bites the inside of her thigh. Clint pulls back and she hates herself for the moment of shock, schools herself to stillness. "Natasha," he breathes, and she just shakes her head.

"Whatever you need," she says. "I'm okay."

“You’re nervous,” says Clint, looking up at her and resting a hand on her knee.

Natasha laughs, feeling ridiculous and young in a way she’s never actually been. He does that to her though, makes her feel things she’s never known she was missing. “So are you.”

He blinks at her as if it’s only just occurred to him that this is the entire point, that trust doesn’t mean being fearless, that sometimes it means being afraid and plunging forward together anyway. Clint gives her a slow, cautious smile, the first honest one she’s seen from him in days. Then he exhales in a rush, resting his head on her hip for a moment before sitting up again and pressing an open-mouthed kiss to her stomach. He’s still shaky but the balance has shifted; she can see a hint of relief in his eyes, of the familiar hunger for her she knows is there beneath the surface.

“Fuck,” Clint growls, his voice going low and gravelly. It twists something in her as she relaxes finally, gives herself up to him fully. “You have any idea how many times I’ve thought about doing this?”

"I figured it might’ve crossed your mind a few times,” Natasha answers sweetly.

He gives her a short laugh as he settles between her legs again, his breath making her shiver. He kisses the inside of her thigh where he bit her, the impossibly soft brush of his lips drawing a needy noise from her throat as she wishes for more.

Clint, however, seems to be content with just touching, trailing his fingertips up her legs and across her stomach. He's leaving goosebumps in his wake, every brush of his hand a little shivery torture.

He's enjoying himself, she thinks, Having some kind of great time just watching her lie there and wait. 

"Are we gonna fuck, or what?" she asks, when the tension is finally too much, when she feels coiled tight and on edge.

Clint breathes a laugh that, like his fingers, skitters weightlessly across her skin. The moment hangs, suspended, as she makes eye contact with him, finds his pupils blown and his face open and raw. He's thinking, she realizes, he's actually trying to decide how far to push her. The idea is delicious, and his basic contemplation feels like a gift. She knows what it's like to have a sluggish brain, to be under someone else's fog, and she understands the effort he's putting out just to spend precious thoughts on her.

He never answers her question. Instead, in a move almost too fast for her to track - almost - he drops his head and lets his tongue dart out to taste her between her thighs.

Natasha doesn't rate her lovers - it seems like a waste of time to compare people who are mostly dead - but if someone asked, she'd put Clint near the top, mostly for the enthusiastic way he goes down on her. He understands how to keep her dancing on the edge of climax for hours, knows how to touch, where to lick, and when a soft graze of teeth will send her spinning. This time is no different from any other time he's eaten her out, except it is. The restraints make her feel more frantic, the helplessness settling into her skin as he draws her taut, and they make her feel more serene, letting the gentle waves of pleasure wash over her body. It's a fascinating dichotomy, she thinks, but the thought gets lost as one of his skilled fingers slips inside her and she loses all grip on rational thought, splintering apart in his hands.

Clint strokes her through it, resting his hand on her hip as her breathing slows. She feels vulnerable in a way that she never has before--not even with him--like her whole being is a bundle of exposed nerve endings, more sensitive because she’s utterly at his mercy. 

“Fuck, Clint,” she breathes appreciatively and he grins again, more easily than before. 

“I’m trying to decide,” he says conversationally, sitting up and thumbing her nipple as he speaks, “how many times I want you to come for me. I mean, I figure I owe you at least one for knocking me back into myself, and one to thank you for--” He gestures to her body, to the ropes that have already begun to rub her raw and tender. His smile grows darker, more feral. “I guess you probably deserve one for saving the world, too.”

“Just one for saving the world?” she teases, inhaling sharply at the slight pressure of his hand on her breast, her body already beginning to respond to him again. “Who knew superheroes got such measly pay.”

Clint laughs and takes her nipple in his mouth, the sensation sending little shockwaves of need through her. He flicks the tip of his tongue across it before worrying it with his teeth. His other hand is wandering again too, tickling her inner thigh before coming to rest between her legs, his thumb just barely brushing against her clit. For the first time she tugs consciously against the ropes, trying to find enough leverage to force his fingers closer to where she really wants them. 

He looks up at her then, flushed and breathing hard, more alive than she’s seen him in weeks. “Want something?”

She recognizes what he’s doing, though this particular brand of torture is usually her own in bed. “You going to make me beg?” she asks, and that idea excites her more than she’d like to admit.

“Hell yes,” says Clint, and teases her with just his fingertips again. 

"Takes a stronger man than you, Barton," she gasps. His face goes serious at the words, and Natasha has a fleeting moment of concern that she's said something unforgivable. But Clint doesn't pull away from her, doesn't stop. Instead he speeds up the brushes of fingertips against her, and begins leaving a sharp trail of kisses and bites down her stomach.

He's good at this, far better than she ever thought he would be. He pauses with his mouth on the curve of her hip and looks back up at her. "Does it?" he asks, his voice heavy.

Natasha lets out a whine. She can take any kind of interrogation. She's withstood tortures of the body and mind. But something about Clint doing these things, about Clint touching her and wanting her, is just too much. The noise that escapes her is a needy moan, reedy and high pitched.

"Please," she sighs. "Clint. Please." He'll want more, just like she would, but as much as she wants to give it to him, as simple as it seems it should be to just open up and let her desire show, she can't. Something stops her from giving in.

"Please what?" he asks, his voice all sugar and innocence, as he slips the barest tip of his finger inside her.

"Make me come," she grits out from between clenched teeth, but Clint just laughs again.

"Specifics, Agent," he chides. It's the voice he uses in the field, the voice of concentration and intensity, and the thought of him turning that laser-sight onto her is intoxicating in a new way.

"Fuck," she spits. "If you don't put your fucking tongue on me, I'm going to goddamn kill you."

"Goddamn kill me?" Clint asks, a little smile pulling on the edges of his mouth. "Well, we can't have that."

Natasha wants to cry in relief when he does what she wants, slips his tongue inside her as the calloused pad of his thumb flickers across her clit. He switches them after a minute, those talented fingers of his driving her over the edge once more as they work in concert with his smart mouth, until she arches and bites out a string of Russian curses giving in to the second orgasm he's pulled from her tonight.

This time he pulls away from her, lets her ride the waves of pleasure on her own. Natasha rolls her head back on his pillow, seeing white behind her eyelids as the muscles in her thighs jump and burn exquisitely. When she opens her eyes again he’s lying on his side, brow furrowed with intense concentration and his hand moving inside his boxers as he strokes himself. The sight of it alone makes her groan, sends a shiver through her as the sweat starts drying on her skin. 

“Need something?” she asks sweetly, not quite gloating over the fact that even tied up she’s brought him to this, that she hasn’t even needed to touch him. 

Clint says nothing, just slips his underwear off and kicks them toward the foot of the bed. He lunges up to kiss her so she can taste herself on his tongue, moaning into her mouth when she nips his lower lip. Breaking away, he turns his attention to her neck again, sucking at the sensitive spot just below her ear before biting her shoulder, leaving bright red marks to match the ones on her wrists and ankles, proclaiming to the world that today she is _his_. He’s practically panting when he comes up for air, biting his own lip as he grinds his erection against her hip a little frantically.

“God, Tasha,” he grits out. “I wanna fuck you hard. Wanna feel you come on my cock and then beg me for more.” For a moment he sounds almost perfectly himself, untouched by the world that nearly came apart around them. But then his confidence falters and he goes still against her, looking almost apologetic. “Can I?”

“Do it,” she orders, because she needs the bravado back, needs the roughness and the litanies of filth.

He moves in a rush once his decision’s made, positioning himself above her and filling her with one sure thrust. The ropes don’t allow her as much traction on the bed as usual or much room to move her hips. Even now he’s completely in control, and it makes her desperate.

“Fuck,” he moans. “You’re so fucking tight, you know that?” He leans up to kiss her, his tongue in her mouth, hot and dirty and perfect. “I fucking love your cunt,” he whispers, leaning over to nip at her earlobe. “Fucking love being inside you, Tasha, goddamn. I could fuck you all day. And, Jesus Christ, you know what seeing you all tied up does to me?” He bites another bruise on her neck, his hips slamming into her hard and fast. 

It’s all she can do to moan out a breathy affirmation – his words are usually a fun distraction, but today they’re a major turn-on, and his possessiveness- the idea that he can be possessive, can want things so intensely- is making her feel a little unhinged.

He groans in appreciation, slowing his hips a little and bending to suck one of her nipples into his hot mouth. “You’re mine, Natasha,” he says, nipping at the pert bud, “all trussed up like a pretty present, and I, fuck, I wanna take all day like this, fuck you slow and make you scream. Over and over. Just go slow until you beg.”

Natasha thinks if he tries slow and teasing again, she might do more than scream, might actually have to murder him the next chance she gets. But he’s apparently reached his own limit with that, and he picks up the pace, moving fast and rough, almost brutally. Balancing on one arm, he slips a hand down between them to finger her clit again, whispering breathless encouragements in her ear. 

Her body is singing on the edge between pleasure and pain as he fucks her hard against the mattress, the fibers of the rope biting her skin as she struggles hungrily for more. For a few blissful moments she feels suspended from reality, awash in sensation, all slick heat and the throbbing ache of climax building low in her belly, all the multitude of thoughts in her mind silenced for once. And then she’s up over the edge and falling again, crying out in a way that leaves her throat raw, is almost unrecognizable in her own ears.

Clint isn’t quite there yet but she can tell he’s close, already losing his rhythm as he nears the edge. Natasha looks up at his face, the way it’s etched with concentration, need, and something frighteningly close to pain. She doesn’t think she’s ever loved him more than she does in this moment, and someday she thinks she might actually tell him so.

“Come on, hotshot,” she says breathlessly. “Show me how much you missed fucking me.”

That seems to destroy his last shred of hesitation. He thrusts into her hard, once, twice, three times before he finally finds his release, collapsing against her and burying his face in her shoulder. 

His body is heavy and his breath is hot as it comes in jagged gasps against her skin. Natasha thinks, for a moment, about trying to nudge him off. And then she realizes that it's not just breathing; the rough gulps of air are actually silent sobs, and his body is shaking with the effort of holding them in.

"Clint," she whispers, softly. "Hey. You're okay."

He doesn't seem to respond, like he's concentrating on holding himself together, so Natasha twists her wrist, allowing her hand to slip free of the rope holding her down.

"Clint," she says again, running her liberated hand through his hair.

That he responds to, jumping a little at her touch.

"You-" He looks up, his eyes rimmed in red. "You could get out?"

She laughs softly, cupping his cheek. “They haven't invented a rope that can hold me," she says. "Wanna talk about why you're crying?"

Clint shakes his head and sniffs, running a finger under his nose before reaching up to untie her other hand. "Not really?"

Natasha rolls her newly-freed wrist before pulling his face down to kiss him on the mouth. "You know you're going to have to, right?"

Clint actually laughs before moving off from on top of her and rolling onto his back. "Yeah."

"So," she says, sitting up to free her ankles, "what's going on?"

Clint shrugs. "I don't even know," he sighs. "I just, you know. I have feelings?"

Her feet free, Natasha rolls onto her side to face Clint. "About what happened, you mean?"

"About, um," Clint laughs again. "Natasha, I honestly don't know. I feel slightly less terrible than I did before you came over, if that helps?"

She scoots closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder and allowing him to pull her close. "It’s gonna take time,” she repeats, hoping it will prompt him to fill in the blanks.

Clint presses a kiss to her forehead. "Probably," he says. "I don't know. What do you want me to say?"

"Be totally emotionally honest and give me all your feelings," she says, and they keep eye contact for a long moment before they both break down laughing.

"Well," Clint says, when he catches his breath. "It began at age seven, when my pet rock ran away, and my daddy never loved me, and last week an evil Norse god kidnapped and brainwashed me."

"And how did that make you feel?" she asks glibly. 

Clint sighs, "I'm glad you're here," he says after a long moment. "I'm sorry."

Natasha slings an arm across his chest. "For what?"

"All of it. You know, the murdering our coworkers thing, the making you beat me up thing, being a difficult son of a bitch."

"I like how difficult you are," she says. “If you weren’t being difficult, I’d still be worried about the mind control thing.”

"That makes one of us," he laughs but his voice breaks on it at the end. "I just, fuck, Natasha. I don’t get second chances. I just wreck things.”

She’s quiet for another moment before speaking again, knowing he doesn’t want empathy right now, won’t be able to hear it through the self-loathing. She raises an eyebrow at him instead. "What do you need a second chance for?"

"For attacking the Helicarrier," he says softly. "And because-- I hurt people."

"I can't take away your guilt," she says, softly. "But I'm pretty sure everyone knows the difference between who you are and what Loki made you do."

Clint just shakes his head and closes his eyes. "S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't exactly known for being forgiving, you know? Maybe you are, but Fury?"

Natasha can’t help it; she snorts at that in a totally undignified and indelicate way. “Seriously? _I’m_ known for being forgiving?”

He looks appropriately chagrined. “Yeah, I mean, there’s lots of things you haven’t murdered me for yet.” It’s an excuse and an obvious one, but it seems to have at least served the purpose of bringing him back to reality.

“Fury brought Banner and Stark onboard,” says Natasha, pointedly. “And he let you recruit me. I'm pretty sure I'm the poster girl for second chances.” She finds his hand and squeezes it lightly. “If you think you need to prove yourself to S.H.I.E.L.D., then I’ll help you do it. But not by winning the new title for most days spent brooding in bed.”

Clint laughs softly. "Can I win the title for days spent in bed with you, then?"

"No," she says. "But if you get up and go to work, you might get to find out what other accessories I have hidden away."

"Oh," Clint grins, kissing her neck softly, "that'll be fun."

Natasha hears the weariness in his voice, so she settles in against his side. He slips his arms around her and she smiles against his skin as his breathing starts to even out. She touches his face, running her fingers feather-light over the lines of exhaustion and pain which are just beginning to fade. He’s got a long way to go, she thinks, and she can’t save him. Her survival instincts, the paranoid bits of her that were programmed by her handlers so many years ago, scream for her to cut and run, to trust only herself. But she made that decision, she thinks, when she chose faith in him over the sure release of death. They’re in this together now; she is tethered to Clint Barton in the deepest way possible and she can’t fight his demons. She can only watch his back, like always.

"You're cuddling me," Clint says blearily against her ear, sending her thoughts skittering to the far corners of her brain. 

"Shut up," she says. He does, pulling her close as he slips into the stillness of sleep.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Let the Morning Come](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026357) by [enigma731](https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigma731/pseuds/enigma731), [samalander](https://archiveofourown.org/users/samalander/pseuds/samalander)




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